The 2nd September General Strike Marksa Militant Resistance Against the BJP Government

NTUI

Over the last twenty-five years successive governments have violated
the law and every labour right with impunity. In this period, we have
also witnessed widespread destruction of livelihoods of all sections of
working people. With perhaps no exception, every electoral party that
has been elected to parliament during this time has contributed –
directly or indirectly – to this attack on the working class. And yet
the BJP’s attack, since it came to government in May 2014, has no
parallel. As the attack on workers and their wages has intensified
there has been a fall in the share of wages in the national income
which has reduced demand in the economy and therefore driven down
growth.

The present BJP government has taken the position that in order to
deliver its election promises to both indigenous and global capital for
cheaper labour and other resources and to revive economic growth, it
must change the basic framework of labour and wage rights by rewriting
the statute books to institutionalise the attack on the working class.
Cost of labour in totality can be lowered by cutting (i) conditions of
work and (ii) wages. Thus the BJP government is determined to
drastically change both the conditions of work, including through an
attack on the freedom of association and collective bargaining, and put
in place a statutory framework that allows low wage labour.

Testing the waters in the states with BJP governments, this government
has amended the Factories Act and raised the floor for establishments
mandatorily to be registered under this act from 10 to 20 thereby
effectively taking 7 out of 10 workers out of its protection.
Simultaneously, at the centre, this government has proposed a Small
Factories Bill that will cover establishments of workers with less than
40 workers. This bill, if legislated, will take away the right to
strike and the right to form trade unions of workers in these
establishments. For larger establishments, the BJP is proposing to
replace the existing Trade Unions Act, Industrial Disputes Act and the
Standing Orders Act with an all-in- one Industrial Relations Code
(IRC). The IRC among many other issues seeks to (i) withdraw the
existing tripartite mechanism of dispute resolution by taking away the
power of the executive to issue reference while not providing an
adequate bipartite mechanism in its place; (ii) take away the right of
workers in establishments with less than fifty workers to challenge
existing standing orders thereby further diminishing the rights of
workers in small establishment; (iii) in the case of closure, change
the existing provision of government approval in the case of
establishments with 100 and more workers to establishments with 300 and
more workers. This amendment has already been brought in by the BJP
governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh; and finally, (iv) impose
fines on workers and deregister the trade union in the event of an
illegal strike, thereby gravely undermining the right to strike of
workers. The IRC further gives government the suo moto right to
interfere in the internal affairs of a trade union if it deems, or even
apprehends, existence of inter- or intra-trade union disputes, thereby
undermining the autonomy of trade unions. These changes in conditions
of work if implemented will take us back to the darkness of the 18th
century pushing more and more workers to insecure and unsafe contract,
casual and irregular jobs.

Through the proposed Wage Code (WC) that seeks to combine the existing
Payment of Wages Act, the Minimum Wage Act, the Payment of Bonus Act
and the Equal Remuneration Act, the BJP government is also set to
remove basic wage rights of workers. Again, amongst other things, the
WC undermines the definition of minimum wage by diluting its
relationship with inflation indexation or dearness allowance. It
restricts the role of trade unions in the tripartite institution that
sets the minimum wage by leaving appointment to the Minimum Wage
Advisory Board to the arbitrariness of government. It narrows the
definition of wages thereby leaving the field open for unequal
remuneration violating the principles of the Equal Remuneration Act and
the principle of equal work for equal pay. In the case of bonus, the WC
does away with the mandatory disclosure of the profit and loss account
and balance sheet of an establishment that allowed workers the right to
negotiate a bonus higher than the minimum of 8.33 percent while
allowing for a productivity bonus. And finally, when there is no doubt
that the Minimum Wage Act is the most violated piece of labour
legislation and that it has been held by the Supreme Court that
non-payment of minimum wage amounts to a condition of bondage, the WC
virtually does away with the entire machinery of inspection and
enforcement opening the way for the privatisation of this machinery.
The fines are also limited for what in effect amounts to a criminal
offence. The assault on wages is dovetailed with an attack on statutory
provisions of social security and in particular the cardinal
legislative protection provided to millions of workers under the
Employee Provident Fund and the Employee Social Insurance that
addresses retirement benefits and healthcare, including compensation
and wage losses as a result of work place accidents and disability. The
legislative proposal allowing workers to opt out for cheaper, market
based social security preys on the desperation caused by low wages and
the loss of disposable income.

On the other hand, decades of rural immiserisation due to sustained
agricultural crisis and lack of alternative rural employments,
employment under NREGA, in government programmes such as Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan as teachers and MDM workers, in ICDS as Anganwadi workers, in
primary health services as ANMs and ASHAs, despite their limitations,
were seen both as providers of wage and of social protection. But the
BJP government has brutally cut budgetary provisions for each of these.
The reduced government expenditure on social protection will cut
employment opportunities (NREGA) and lower the availability of
necessary social services and health care further eating into incomes
of the lowest income section of the working people. Simultaneously, the
proposed changes in the LARR through successive ordinances, takes away
the democratic right of people dependent on a particular tract of land
to give consent for acquisition of that land. The amendment takes away
the crucial Social Impact Assessment clause of the LARR that was
institutionalised after the struggles against land acquisition. This
amendment also moves compensation to only the landed, excluding the
landless dependent agricultural workers while widening the definition
of ‘public purpose’ to include all manner of private interests and
restricting judicial remedy. This will lead to greater migration from
rural areas leading to a further drastic lowering of wages and working
conditions in urban and industrial centres.

For the BJP government ‘Ease of Business’ is necessary for ‘Make in
India’. What this means in reality is that government will put itself
at the disposal of the private sector and global capital through tax
breaks and concession and place the capacity and strength of the public
sector at the disposal of the private sector. The delinking of coal
mining and the end user; majority private and foreign control over
defence production, the railways and the insurance sectors are steps to
open the economy to the private sector and global capital without any
safeguards. In much of the public sector we have already witnessed,
apart from creeping disinvestment, privatisation by stealth through
outsourcing.

Achieving all of this will not be easy for the BJP government even with
the rest of the political class and thus it has resorted to ordinances
and executive orders where it cannot get legislation through
parliament. And for the citizenry, it will use every means to divide
people along lines of religion, caste, community, region, language and
gender. It is our collective understanding that the undemocratic
actions and intentions of the BJP government warrant spirited and
sustained resistance from all sections of the working class. We all
recognise that a one-day action will not be sufficient to meet this
attack. We learn from our experience of the recent strikes in the coal
industry, amongst state transport workers and others that there is
already a strong resistance to the government’s actions. The one-day
strike will contribute to this resistance. Whether or not we are a part
of the 11 CTUOs platform our organisations have always responded to
every joint-call in the interest of working class unity. We commit
ourselves to together ensure the success of the strike. Where ever we
are – we will join the strike or lead the strike to mark our resistance
against the BJP governments’ actions. We call upon all sections of the
working class to come together in strike action on 2nd September 2015
and call upon all sections of the working class to join this strike. At
the same time we commit ourselves to a more sustained resistance in the
days and weeks ahead.

Resist the Attack on the Labour Rights, the Minimum Wage and Trade Union Rights

Repeal the Land Acquisition Ordinance

Win a Minimum Wage of Rs. 15,000 a Month

Ensure Safe and Secure Jobs for All

Ensure Equal Pay for Equal Work

AICCTU
NTUI
IFTU
TUCI

Workers join General Strike in large numbers

New Delhi, 2 September 2015:
In record numbers workers across the country struck work today. Through
the length and breadth of the country, workers from all sectors in tens
of millions stood in solidarity with one and another to tell the BJP
government that its writ will not run and that they will not accept the
attack on wages and trade union rights.

The New Trade Union
Initiative salutes its members and the entire working class who stood
up courageously today against the onslaught of government and
employers, the attack from political parties and their goons, and the
opposition from trade unions of parties of government in power, in
numbers that mark a turning point for progressive trade unions and the
militant working class. Today’s strike was different in that it was not
restricted to enclaves of trade union strength but brought forth the
political power of the working class to enforce its strike in so many
towns and cities across the country.

The NTUI in particular celebrates workers in irregular, contract,
‘honorary’, daily wage work mostly in unsafe and insecure jobs – many
of whom face the possibility of losing their jobs when engaging in
industrial action. The NTUI also celebrates the strike action in the
private sector especially in the National Capital Region, where
repression for standing up for trade union rights is perhaps at its
highest, as also its members across the private sector including in
global firms: in Alstom, Ashok Leyland, Bajaj Auto, Blue Star, DHL,
Holcim, Hyundai Earth Movers, Knorr Bremse, Novartis, Sanofi, Siemens,
Tenneco, Thermax, Valeo and so many more. Our members were also able to
bring in coordination with other progressive trade unions a near
complete shutdown in the Bhilai and Adityapur (Jamshedpur) industrial
areas. In Jamshedpur and elsewhere in Jharkhand and in the tea
plantations of West Bengal, our activists were arrested.

Of course the strike was not entirely uniform at all locations. In some
of public sector mines, electricity generations and steel plants where
our affiliates unionise contract workers the permanent workers did not
join the strike action. Persistent divisions such as these remain
challenges to be addressed. And yet we, like other unions, also broke
new ground. In several districts in northern Karnataka, members of our
agricultural workers’ affiliate joined the strike in the thousands. In
many district towns of Assam daily wage workers joined a general strike
for the first time.

Today’s strike was critical signal to government that the working class
has a capacity to resist when democratic rights of workers are
attacked. It became all the more important as this was a call by the 13
recognised trade unions of which the trade unions affiliated to the
parties of government broke ranks and opposed it last week as the
government threw sops at the trade unions. The government last week
proposed a revision of the minimum wage and annual bonus in a failed
meeting with the trade unions. What today’s strike unambiguously
signals is that progressive trade unions and our members are not
willing to negotiate our demands in a piecemeal manner.

The working class will not be bought over by a virtual tweaking of the
minimum wage and the annual bonus but it will stand up for
comprehensive wage rights including social security and social
protection and for trade union rights. We know that nothing can be
defended or won without the right to collective bargaining and the
right to freedom of association.